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The two sat quietly atop a boulder not far from where their pods had come to ground. Randa sat with an arm loosely draped across Itico's large neck and leaned into him for comfort and warmth.

"You know," she muses, "when we are in the thick of things we do not often have the time to think about what we are going to do once the crisis is over."

Itico huffs softly, resting his head on his forepaws as he watched the far horizon. "Sometimes it seems like we will never get out so when you do it can be a shock."

She sighs, resting her head atop Itico's and looks in the same general direction. "Do you sense something? She asks.

Itico's mental voice is soft, resonant and sounds something like the purr of a domestic feline's purr, even though he himself can not make the sound. "No," he says, "I just have a feeling something's out there."

"Good, bad or what?"

Itico huffs again, "Don't know," his tail lashes once, "Something unsettling."

Randa stretches out a little, laying more atop of the larger, quadrupedal tiger and says, "Well, I guess that answers the question of where we go next."

Moving his head against Randa's side, Itico sighs again. "Agreed. There are too many questions that need to be answered before we even know what our options are."

Randa gently strokes along Itico's neck, apparently enjoying the simple idle touch. "I might," she says, "have a few more answers than you do."

Itico curls a little more to look at the younger tiger, "Oh, do tell."

"First," she says, "it is so good to see you. I did not know that you were on the same ship. If I had, I might have tried to give people more warning."

Itico chuckled, more of a mental thing than physical. "So, this is all your doing?"

"No," she replies, gently tickling one of Itico's ears. "I did play some important roles, I will admit, but we would not have been able to escape without the help of others."

Itico gently shakes his head, turns away and yawns hugely. "I was wondering who that was who blew up the lab that released me and the others who were confined there." He seems to doze off for a few minutes before shaking himself awake again. "Sorry, he says, they kept us heavily sedated much of the time when they weren't experimenting on us." He shivers, lashes his tail once and makes an effort to pull back the claws he had unconsciously extended. "Just all of a sudden there was a huge explosion and one of the lab techs goes flying across the room with his lab coat on fire. He slams into the wall where all the cage controls were and must have hit some emergency release." He chuckles again, "A more recent addition was not as sedated as the rest of us and she, I think it was a she, is out of her cage faster than the tech could react. She hits him as he is standing and putting out his coat and they go sliding out of site. I followed more slowly to find the tech roughly dismembered. Whatever that creature was, she was fast, strong and not very subtle. That's when I noticed that the corridor contained escape pods. The one who took out the tech had already taken one."

He pauses, curling more comfortably around Randa again and continues. "I wasn't able to communicate directly to anyone else but when I herded everyone to where the pods were, they got the idea. There were just enough and I was the last one out." He falls silent again and soon he drifts off to sleep.

Randa just lets him sleep while she enjoys the feeling of laying across one of her own kind for the first time in several years.

Itico wakes slowly and stretches a little before noticing that Randa is still pressed against his side. She wakes up as well and pulls her hand back from where it has been resting. She looks a little embarrassed.

"It's okay," says Itico. "I didn't think you would be interested."

"I've never seen one of our own before and I've always wondered," she admits.

Itico nods softly, "I can smell some of what you have been through. I thought you might avoid anything like that."

"That sometimes was the easiest part of it," she admits, "it was all acting that didn't require much talent. No one watches you closely when they are busy jacking off into you." She shivers. "The hard part was all the serving, pretending to be happy and helpful. Even though if you don't do any of it there is a chance that they would blow your head off if you make even one mistake."

"You can't make a mistake here," says Itico.

Randa smiles slightly and hugs on Itico a little more.

Itico admits, "I have dreams about being with one of our kind even though I have never been with anyone. I was too young when we were taken."

She nods, "I'm younger than you and I was forced into this before my body was ready. Not that anyone is ever ready for this."

Itico nods and turns to nuzzles softly at her side. "Again you can not make a mistake with me. Look, feel, whatever you need to do."

Randa nods and hugs even tighter, wiping a tear away. "Thank you." She tentatively reaches out to rest her hand again on Itico's flank. She slides her fingers against his thick fur and back to where her fingers had been eating before, under his tail. She feels Itico's well hidden sheath and sack. She shivers a she starts to finger and explore. She carefully pulls out the skinny piece of flesh and looks at it carefully.

His member had gone soft during their talk so it had fully retracted. As Randa starts to explore, his shaft starts to firm up again. As she watches the highly pointed tip begins to poke out of the white fur. The light pink flesh very visible in the flash of white fur that covers much of his body.

He shivers as his shaft extends fully to reveal the pinkish white flesh that is a little more bumpy than smooth. The tapered tip blends to a narrow bent cone that bulges in the middle before narrowing once again to a modest thickness. His shaft is covered in small protrusions that act like barbs.

She traces her fingers along the length of the shaft, "This is very different then all of the others."

He nods, "Mmhmm."

She shyly draws her hand back and pinks around her ears, "Thank you." She sits back up and laughs a little. "In so many ways I'm still just a little girl."

Itico nods. "We lived where so many died. I can't say we are lucky. I still have dreams of the attack. I see all the dead bodies of people I loved, respected and then to be taken by the very people who destroyed our world, our childhood." He shudders. "I can't even begin to express the rage, the despaired, the complete helplessness I feel, especially when they separated us."

Randa sighs deeply and starts to say something as she is rubbing her eyes again. The universe had other plans though and decided to split open at that moment.

The two look up at two brightly burning objects streaking towards the ground. One smaller than the other but both falling along the same path.

As the pair watched them fall, the larger resolved into a ship by flaring even more brightly and slowing. The smaller continued and slammed into the ground. While the ship wobbled as it descended in a slightly more controllered trajectory, they watched it land near the first impact.

"Well, I know the first thing I want to do," says Randa.

"See what the burning sun that was all about," replies Itico.

They headed off in the direction of the crash and had been walking for quite a while by the time they arrived. The planet's star neared the horizon promising a dark and chilly night. By the time they spotted the two objects that had fallen from the sky, it was just light enough to se but swiftly getting dark. They observed a small bipedal creature who was obviously enraged bouncing around with its long hair flying as it savagely kicked at a third egg shaped pod from the destroyed spaceship.

Suddenly one of his small feet punched a hole right into the side off the pod and losing his balance in surprise the creature falls over onto his back. As the egg begins to dissemble itself like the others have done, the creature scurries back before standing back up and watching the liquifying pod.

Randa walks up beside the more diminutive creature who does not appear to notice, so wrapped up in the melting of the pod. At least, he does not react to her until she steps forward into the spreading puddle and pulls away a piece of the shell. Instead of another person inside, she finds a collection of canisters.

"A supply pod," she says.

Itico hangs back, watching and replies, "Maybe there's something to eat in there. I'm getting hungry enough to start chewing on trees."

Randa turns to notice the new arrival, but the creature has nearly collapsed to the ground and is no longer watching the pod but a spot about fingers distance from its long nose. She shrugs a little and pulls one canister out of the stack. It is medium sized. She grabs the handle on one end and starts to twist.

With a small pop of equalizing pressure, the canister easily unscrews. As the contents are reveal, Randa drops it, scattering dozens of functional slave collars.

Randa exclaims, "Of course the assholes would bring a supply of these!" She kicks the collars and starts to stormy them into the mud. This does not do enough to them though so she picks up a few in arch hand and starts to smash them against the sides of the canisters and making a great deal of noise but not really doing much to the durable collars.

One of the collars rolls into the line of vision of the crouching newcomer and it grabs it and examines to closely. It pulls a small tool from a pouch at its side, inserts it into a small hole and with a satisfying crack the collar snaps apart much like when Itico bit the one around Randa's neck. Since the collar was not armed, the acid was not released.

Randa stops her raging and looks at the long-haired biped who has picked up another collar and repeated the procedure with that one. She reaches for the tool.

As the newcomer sees her hand he freezes, allowing her to take the tool from her hand.

Randa reaches into her thick hair between her rounded ears and pulls out a small metal cube which she had tied onto a loop. She hands it to the other. She asks the stranger, "Do you speak galactic standard?"

It almost looks at her before looking back at the cube. It climbs to its feet and turns towards the ship on which it arrived, only to spot Itico sitting n the grass not far away.

It slowly walked around Itico until it had a clear angle to the ship's ramp and then it darted inside. Surprisingly, the hatch stayed open and the ramp stayed down.

After quite a long time, the creature returned to the top of the ramp and timidly made its way to the ground. While it walked right to the pair of tigers, it kept its eyes to the ground.

The two tigers had opened every other canister after Randa had finished destroying the remaining collars. Some of them lay in three or four pieces. The other canisters contained a small, self-powered heater, a shelter and after all, some algae-grown foodstuff which they were both snacking on.

Without looking up, the newcomer sets down a bulky device and then steps back. A little animated character appears on the top of the device, roughly mimicking the creature standing before them. It spoke. "Hello. If you understand me, please indicate by speaking in the affirmative."

Randa laughs softly, nods, and replies, "I understand."

The little avatar atop the device seems to move while it speaks, gesturing and moving ears, tail and body as.a natural speaker might. It turned around to say something to the newcomer who appeared relieved. Then, the little avatar turned back to face Randa and continues in its slightly robotic voice. "Zuhumi apologizes but would be much more comfortable if you could put on some clothing. He has brought some for you since you do not appear to have any of your own."

Zuhumi knelts to set a pile of folded garments next to Randa without looking at her.

The translator speaks again, "You may use the ship to dress if your pet may be trusted not to damage either Zuhumi or myself."

Itico huffed, a kind of laugh for anyone who knew him.

"Pet?" Randa laughs. "Itico's not my pet. We're the same species. He's practically my brother!" She picks up the clothing and starts to the ship. "Tell Zuhumi that Itico will not try to eat him as long as he doesn't try and eat Itico. Also, thank him for the clothing. I will be right back."

Randa does not go into the ship but does walk around behind one of the landing struts to dress. When she emerges only a few minutes later, Zuhumi is seated next to the heater, fiddling with one of the dismembered collars.

"So," Zuhumi says to Itico through the translator which sits between them, the little avatar now gone, "you can understand but you can not speak."

Itico nods.

"You two can obviously communicate, so it's some mental thing?"

Itico nods again.

"I think that most people call it telepathy," adds Randa as she strolls back.

Zuhumi cautiously looks and seems to relax now that Randa has on a colorful robe. The robe is covered in many patterns and makes the clothing that Zuhumi himself wears look dull and drab. He bows his head to Randa but does look up at her.

Randa sits next to the two men, folding the robe around herself neatly. "So, what's with the robe?"

Zuhumi's ears flutter and he bows his head again, and through the translator apologizes. "It's considered highly disrespectful to view any female unclothed. While your species is very different than mine, you appeared to be female and, well, I do not have any experience in that department." He looks back at Itico then to Randa again. "If you two are the same species, I understand things a lot less than I thought I did."

"I am female," says Randa, "but this is not my body." She reaches out and picks up one piece of a collar and gestures with it. "The race that made this, made this body to wear it." She drops the piece back into the dirt.

Zuhumi's ears droop and his entire body seems to deflate a little before he looks back up. "So, this body you wear now was grown, like a special order? Then, what, the stuffed your brain in it?"

Randa shakes her head and reaches over to stroke Itico as he is now stretched out long on the ground. She says, "Well, I don't know exactly how it works but they decided that it cost too much money and time to keep collecting new slaves, training them and then shipping them to where ever they were needed so the developed this technology which allowed a single mind to control a body at a distance. The bodies were specially grown using characteristics of the host, even down to how they smell, which is how Itico recognized me. A body dies, you grow a new one and your favorite slave is back in service, already knowing your preferences, whims. No mess, no fuss." She stops, looks at the other tiger. "I have to find my actual body."